Hearings were scheduled to continue Wednesday after motions were heard in court Tuesday in Albuquerque's Metro Courthouse scandal.

Five key players in getting the courthouse built are charged with skimming millions of tax payer dollars off the top of construction costs.

Advertisement

Prosecutors said money that was supposed to go toward Metro Court construction ended up in the state senator's, court administrator's, project engineer's, and construction overseer's pockets.

"We're trying to make sure all the evidence that we believe would be helpful in our case would be properly admitted at trial," said federal prosecutor Jonathan Gerson.

It's been a year and a half since the case started, and there's still no resolution. Now one defense attorney is asking charges against his client be thrown out.

Motions continued Tuesday as the government tried keeping evidence in play against all five indicted. But according to one defense attorney, the feds also made a big mistake.

"When the government acknowledged they didn't have evidence on a critical portion of their case against Mr. Murphy, we're now moving to dismiss the indictment," said attorney Jason Bowles.

Mike Murphy owned the consulting firm overseeing courthouse construction in 2002. He's charged with signing off on fraudulent involices for the building. Prosecutors said money for those invoices got divided up among the defendants.

Murphy's lawyer is asking for all charges against his client be dropped.

"Now they're saying a central portion of their theroy was incorrect. They don't have evidence on that, so now we're moving to dismiss," said Bowles.

Federal prosecutors said the court talked about mostly scheduling concerns Tuesday and said little about the motion to dismiss charges against a key defendant.

"It's a lot of technical lawyer stuff," said Gerson.

Procedures in the case continue Wednesday. Jury selection is set to begin on Oct. 28.